Better to be hated than loved for what I am not.

inside the cave

There’s an elongated finger

pointing at me wagging in reproach,

like the branch of a tree on a tree

it creeps into me

and will not let me forget.

How you are faded purple,

wonder-less,

it will not let me forget.

I could not survive it

and now

I heave, you leave

a thumb print in ink

dramatic little lines.

In a broken chair in your broken brain

I sit.

What it must be like

to be you

all that grime

peeling off like a slug

leaving wet spaces.

I can crawl

into your snail’s shell

through coal and mud and fire.

Like a priest I will bow my way in.

I am white-washed,

carry me home

indefinitely.

Verlaine

Aurthur Rimbaud's lover, brilliant madman of the Parisian bohemian art scene, exquisite poet.

I often have this dream, strange, penetrating,

Of a woman, unknown, whom I love, who loves me,

And who’s never, each time, the same exactly,

Nor, exactly, different: and knows me, is loving.

Oh how she knows me, and my heart, growing

Clear for her, alone, is no longer a problem,

For her alone, she alone understands, then,

How to cool the sweat of my brow with her weeping.

Is she dark, blonde, or auburn? – I’ve no idea.

Her name? I remember it’s vibrant and dear,

As those of the loved that life has exiled.

Her eyes are the same as a statue’s eyes,

And in her voice, distant, serious, mild,

The tone of dear voices, those that have died.

~

High-heels were struggling with a full-length dress

So that, between the wind and the terrain,

At times a shining stocking would be seen,

And gone too soon. We liked that foolishness.

Also, at times a jealous insect's dart

Bothered out beauties. Suddenly a white

Nape flashed beneath the branches, and this sight

Was a delicate feast for a young fool's heart.

Evening fell, equivocal, dissembling,

The women who hung dreaming on our arms

Spoke in low voices, words that had such charms

That ever since our stunned soul has been trembling.

Paris sky

THE PARIS SKY IS BLUE AND BRIGHT

I WANT TO FLY WITH ALL MY MIGHT

HER LEGS ARE LONG

HER HEART IS HIGH

THE CHAINS ARE STRONG

BUT SO AM I.

- LEONARD COHEN

Sylvia Plath

To a Jilted Lover

Cold on my narrow cot I lie
and in sorrow look
through my window-square of black:

figured in the midnight sky,
a mosaic of stars
diagrams the falling years,

while from the moon, my lover's eye
chills me to death
with radiance of his frozen faith.

Once I wounded him with so
small a thorn
I never thought his flesh would burn

or that the heat within would grow
until he stood
incandescent as a god;

now there is nowhere I can go
to hide from him:
moon and sun reflect his flame.

In the morning all shall be
the same again:
stars pale before the angry dawn;

the gilded cock will turn for me
the rack of time
until the peak of noon has come

and by that glare, my love will see
how I am still
blazing in my golden hell.

And from that time on I bathed in the Poem

And from that time on I bathed in the Poem
Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk,
Devouring the green azures;
where, entranced in pallid flotsam,
A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down;

Where, suddenly dyeing the bluenesses, deliriums
And slow rhythms under the gleams of the daylight,
Stronger than alcohol, vaster than music
Ferment the bitter redness of love!
But, truly, I have wept too much!

The Dawns are heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter:
Sharp love has swollen me up with heady languors.
O let my keel split!
O let me sink to the bottom!

-Aurthur Rimbaud

Ink

She had written herself all over his body. She surrounded everything. The ink just wouldn't rub off.